


Shadows of the Past

by dutiesofcare



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 21st Century, Alternate Reality, F/M, Hitler won WW2, The world is a Nazi world, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2018-11-29 14:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11442987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dutiesofcare/pseuds/dutiesofcare
Summary: The Doctor and Clara arrive in a very different London in the 21st century. In a search for answers, they find out someone had been messing up with the past, allowing a reality in which Hitler had won World War II. Before they have the chance to set it right again, Clara comes across someone she had lost a long time ago, someone she was bound to lose if she dared to set the past right again.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in a 2015 Nazi world, any further information will be revealed as the story goes. I don't have any beta writers so forgive me of any eventual grammar slips.
> 
> Disclaimer: None of the main characters belongs to me.
> 
> Any (clasraoswaId), this is for you.

The TARDIS materialized herself in the middle of London.

Clara Oswald stepped out of the machine and looked at her surroundings. The street was familiar to her, but it wasn't her home like the Doctor was ought to drop her. Everything was completely normal and yet there was something different in the air, at least different from the last time she had stepped in her town.

"Doctor?" she called out for him, almost yelling so he would hear her from the depths of his spaceship, "Are you sure we've landed in the right date?"

The old alien looked from her petite form just in the door frame of his ship to the monitor. The date checked correct. "As a matter of fact, yes," he said simply, not admitting out loud his machine had a bad habit of never landing where it was supposed to.

"Something's… off," her voice was low, but he heard her anyway. In a matter of seconds, she felt him hovering behind her, his height allowing him a view of the outside even though she was still standing by the door.

"It looks the same to me," he confessed, although he hadn't really taken the effort to analyze the environment. "It always feels weird coming back home after too much time on space. I wouldn't give it too much thought."

Finally, she started to walk away from the time machine, feeling the chill air touch her bare arms. Odd, she thought to herself, there were no clouds in the sky indicating the possibility of rain, and summer in England tended to be warm. She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Her nose twitched a little, before saying, "Where in London are we exactly? I don't see any signs."

He sighed deeply, at last giving in and going after her, "If I were to guess… I'd say Baker Street."

Clara frowned her forehead remarkably, "That's crazy, Doctor. This can't be Baker Street."

"Why not?" he pondered, distancing himself from her a little, "Look," he pointed at a random building, "There's that M&S Café you took me once, saying you wanted to be the one to take me somewhere you liked."

"You didn't like it, of course," she mumbled under her breath.

"No, but that's not the point," he took a few steps to his die, "You can see the trees from that little park from here, you know, we went for a walk there afterwards."

Clara smiled at the memory, "Yeah, you were terrified of walking there at night, saying that burglars were out to get your magician coat  _and_  your screwdriver."

The Doctor chuckled to himself, "And you said I didn't have to worry, because you were taking taekwondo classes," he glanced right into her deep brown eyes, and if he didn't fear drowning on them, he wouldn't have looked away, pointing at the street below, "And if you walk down that road, you'll surely find the infamous Sherlock home."

She closed her smile, sadly, understanding he had to change the subject as fast as he could, otherwise he would start to evidently care. She sighed, still unable to take her eyes off him, "Something is still odd, I can feel it."

He scratched his chin, "Come on, Clara, let's go back to the TARDIS and I'll take you home," he stood an arm out for her.

She ignored it, "Doctor, if you're so sure about it, then tell me something, where are all the cars? I don't know if you've forgotten but Baker Street is a pretty busy place."

The Doctor shrugged, "It might be Sunday."

Clara shook her head, "Then where are all the tourists? Tourists don't stay put on Sundays, they're always walking by; we've been here for a while now and yet no car, no person, has passed us."

He seemed to think for a moment, but still wouldn't budge in, "You're being paranoid."

Her eyes widened out of the blue, "Do you think there's been an alien invasion of some form while we were away and I'm the last human standing on Earth?!

He couldn't tell whether she was being serious or simply mocking him, because she knew he would fall for it. "If you are, then you're really lucky to be accompanied of space man willing to take you to all of time and space."

Clara smiled, unsure if he knew how flirtatious that had sounded, "Seriously, Doctor, what's going on here?"

He shot his shoulders up and down, "I don't know, you tell me."

She nodded, changing the view from him to the city that surrounded her. She had been there before, and although she hadn't really paid attention to the architecture, she could swear they weren't that rustic. It seemed to her most of the local stores had disappeared, vanished into thin air. It was different.

She circled around herself a couple of times, until her eyes got a glimpse of something she never thought she would see. She froze, opening and closing her eyes several times to make sure she wasn't hallucinating, opening and closing her lips a few more before any sound was formed, "Doc-tor, look…!"

His head turned in the same direction as hers. It took him a while to find what had caused her so much shock, but when he did, he felt her confusion pass along to him, "It's a… It's a swastika…?"

Clara reached out to grab his arm, holding it so tightly her fingertips were turning white. She could hear the panic in her own voice, "I don't understand, why is there a swastika in the middle of London? This can't be modern England, no, the TARDIS must have gotten it wrong."

The Doctor cleared his throat, his eyes so focused at the unusual flag they weren't even blinking, "The TARDIS never gets it wrong, Clara."

She leaned closer to him, "What are you saying, the TARDIS always gets it wrong," she argued, still a little unsteady.

"Alright, the TARDIS might get it wrong, but her monitors, don't," he explained, feeling her warm breath against his cold alien body, "If they're broken, we're in greater than arriving during World War II. We're stuck during World War II."

She took a deep breath, "I don't like this, Doctor. From all my years on school, I've never learned about the Nazis succeeding to invade Britain," she speculated, "I think we should go back to the TARDIS and stay off the radar until we figure out what's happening."

"Or," he started, his shock beginning to subside into curiosity, "We could go into some store and ask them the date."

"They would think we are bonkers for not knowing the date," she protested, but had no choice but to follow him once he started to walk away.

"We will come up with a clever story," he shrugged, "E.G., you've been in a coma for the past ten years and doesn't know what year it is so you decide to ask it around, since you refuse to believe in me and my time expertise."

"Why do  _I_  have to be the one in coma?" she squealed, rushing her little legs to keep up with his pace, "If anyone were to be in a coma, it should be you. Just look at your face!"

The Doctor looked at her with the corner of his eyes, "But what about this great story of how I've patiently waited for you for the past ten years, in the hope you would wake up but in the fear you would sleep forever?"

Clara rolled her eyeballs, "Aren't you full of yourself," she complained, "I could have been the one waiting for you."

He let out a chuckle, "Clara, your face resembles one that has just left the womb. You can't have been waiting for so long."

She raised an eyebrow, "How's that any different from having you wait for me for so long?" she snapped, finally coming across one open shop, "You know what, you stay quiet and let me handle the talking."

He muffed something she couldn't understand, following her into the store. It was a clothing shop, having little diversity on the fabrics available. But what draw Clara's attention the most was how all the women's designs were dresses or skirts down the knees.

She walked up to the clerk, who was sitting down the counter. Behind her, there was a teenaged girl, who couldn't be older than fourteen, and from their looks, she had a fair guess they were mother and daughter. Clara, on the other hand, was starting to feel uncomfortable at the way they were both staring at her, like she was England's most wanted.

She chose to ignore it, knowing the sooner she pried for information, the faster they could get out of there, "Hi, I'm sorry to bother but would you mind telling what day's today?"

The younger girl stared curiously at her, meanwhile the older one had a blank expression on, "It's April 24th, ma'am."

Clara nodded, "And the year?"

Noticing the quick change in their features, the Doctor rushed in, "Please, forgive her. She's recently awoken from a coma after  _ten_   _years_  and she refuses to believe me when I say the date," he went along his story, regardless of how she had told him to stay quiet, "Can't blame her, though, imagine how awful must it feel to wake up and find out that ten years of your life have gone by without your knowledge."

The woman's frown didn't change, "2015, ma'am."

Much like the Doctor, the girl couldn't remain silent, "That's a lie."

"Elena, please!" the mother scolded her, turning her head back to the time travelers, "I'm sorry for my daughter. Would you like to take a look around?"

Clara's jaw fell open as she was about to say something, probably ask what had happened since she had last stepped on Earthly ground, but the teenager spoke up first, "Mum! Get them out of her! If there happens to be an inspection, we'll be screwed for interacting with a prostitute!"

Clara looked down at her clothes. She was wearing a jeans jumpsuit that went down to a little above her knees, a white shirt beneath it. It wasn't like she was exposing too much of her skin – not that she could care if she were. "I'm not a prostitute."

Elena buffed at the statement still facing her mother, as if looking at either of them was some sort of sin. "Mum, she's clearly a prostitute and that man is her pimp. Get them out of here."

"She's been in a coma for the past decade," the Doctor insisted, "The fashion sense back then was way different than what it is now. You can't hold something she doesn't know against her."

Elena approached her mother, "You know that's not how fashion was back then. And being in a coma? No one stays in coma for longer than a month anymore, nowadays. They're either rebels of the Reich or just mentally sick."

The clerk took a long breath, looking down at the floor as she stood, "I think you both should leave.

Clara's eyes enlarged, what the hell was going on? "But-"

"Please," the woman begged, still unable to initiate eye contact, "We don't want any problems."

The Doctor wrapped his fingers around her tiny wrist, "Come on, Clara, let's go," he said, pulling her by the arm before she had the chance to protest.

The moment they reached outside, she freed herself from his grip just so she could look at him in the eyes, perplexed, "Did that girl just call me a whore?"

"She just called me your pimp, when we clearly resemble the same age!" he spatted, indignantly.

Clara frowned her brows. Sometimes she assumed he'd forgotten he didn't look like his past incarnation anymore. "You just told me you look too old to be in a coma for ten years, Doctor."

"Well, obviously, you'd be the better candidate for a vegetable, you were asleep for so long, you didn't have to work and grow old like I did," he stated the obvious.

She shook her head, "You know what? Never mind that," she threw her hands in the air, "Can we focus ourselves in the big picture here, instead? I mean, this clearly isn't the London I left a few weeks ago."

"No, it isn't" he agreed, circling around himself so he could lean eyes on everything, "Someone – something – is setting a new reality…? They could be hypnotizing people, altering their memories so they wouldn't be able to tell truth from fiction apart, therefore they can set any reality they want."

She stood still, eyeing him as he studied the environment. "Who's doing this? And why weren't we affected the moment we landed?"

"I don't know," he rubbed his jawline, still glancing up, "And probably because we weren't here the moment they took over."

"Then everybody who was born after is off the hook?" she pondered.

"Technically," he nodded, "But just like you were born knowing nothing, so were they. They don't know any better than growing up in an environment like this. This isn't fiction for them, Clara, this is pure and simple history."

Clara's expression was blank, "So unless we fix this, the whole world is screwed," she concluded.

"In general terms, yeah," he consented, starting to walk down the street. Clara was quick to follow him.

"Doctor?" she yelled from a little behind, "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Grab your phone," he demanded, not slowing his pace down so she would be able to catch up, "Google it. Someone's ought to have noticed it."

"But-"

"And be careful not to come across any spoilers," he didn't let her speak, "Anything you read becomes a fixed point, and you don't want any major events to be unchangeable."

She grabbed her phone out of her pocket, reluctantly, "I don't get it, Doctor, if we don't want to know it, then why am I googling it?"

"Just so we have a general sense of what's happening."

Clara was having a hard time keeping up with him, both physically as mentally. For some reason, he was more hyperactive than normal that day. "But you just told me what is happening."

"No," he held a finger up in the air, "I  _speculated_  what could be happening. The answer is currently lying on that artifact on your hands."

Facing her mobile, Clara stopped dead on her tracks. She was getting more and more lost by the second. "Doctor…"

"Hm? What is it?" he called her back, but had no alternative but to stop walking and turn around, as she had stopped moving. He scowled at her baffled expression, "Clara, what is it?"

"Google… Google is gone," she let out a cry, too in shock to look back up.

"What?!" he rushed back to her side, "Have you tried refreshing the page?"

"Of course I have," she grunted, "This doesn't add up. Had they taken down all the satellites from Earth, the universal reach chip you gave me still would have been able to access it. Have they taken down Google instead?"

"It's possible," he suggested, "Getting rid of Google would be a great way to control people's access to information, especially now in an era in which humans simply don't use paper anymore. Check other websites."

"They're all gone," she sighed, "Twitter, Wikipedia, BBC. Everything's gone," at last, she restored the eye contact, repeating, "I don't like this, Doctor."

"I don't, either," he confessed, "Whoever's doing this, they're in deeper than we originally thought."

"What happens next? What are we supposed to do?" she wondered, stepping a little closer to him. Feeling his presence next to her was all the comfort she was taking in that moment.

For the first time since their arrival, they say a person passing by. A man, in his mid-twenties, on the opposite side of the street, walking in a quiet motion. Eyeing each other, they both agreed they should try and gather some information from him.

"Hi," the Doctor called for him, midway through the street, Clara following close behind, "We're new in town, would you mind-"

"Get back to the brothel you come from," he didn't even bother himself to hear them through, looking at Clara with disgust, as he rushed away from them.

She could feel her blood running angrily through her veins, on the verge of losing her temper with everybody making assumptions about her, so irritated with the way she was getting treated that she stepped right in front of him, blocking his way, "Why's everybody thinking I'm a whore?" her voice had gone one scale up, "I'm  _not_  a whore, and my clothes certainly do not define who I am, so I think it's time for you to get your outdated patriarchy out of your tiny little mind."

The Doctor simply stood back, watching her with half a smirk on his lips. If there was something that he had no doubts about was that she could damn well stand up for herself.

The man looked down at her with intimidating eyes. He made sure to lean down at her height, assuring her of his superiority. "And I think you should shut up, because men don't like women with attitude, and it's very likely that one of them might take it the wrong way, besides feeling provoked with your clothing, and end up doing things you wouldn't like. Or, who knows, maybe you do enjoy that kind of power over you."

Clara felt sick to her stomach with his words, but that didn't make her back down. Instead, she rose her finger just a few inches away from his face. "You're not superior to me. You don't get to threaten me. You don't get to call me a whore."

Without any previous warning, he angrily and tightly grabbed her by the wrist. Clara tried to break free, but he was stronger than her. She ordered him to let go of her, only getting him to toughen his grip over her. He was about to say something when the Doctor pulled him away from his companion with a strong shove of his shoulder.

"You won't lay a finger on any woman," his voice was calm, but fierce nonetheless, "Especially if she's accompanied by me," he saw her scratching her wrists, now red with the stamp of his fingers. "Clara, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she muffed under her breath.

The young man started to laugh, "Do you really think I'm scared of a draft old man and his escort? You should fear me, because there is a police officer approaching and I could easily get you both arrested."

The Doctor turned around, only to notice there was indeed a uniform getting closer. There was still quite a distance them, so he could only make the red fabric of his upper left shoulder. He heard her say, "We haven't done nothing wrong. If anybody's in trouble, it should be you for vain respect and harassment."

The Doctor took a step back, as his eyes finally understood the sign in his arm. "Clara, I don't think he'd be willing to help us."

Without any morals or decency, the guy yelled to the policeman, "Officer! This  _prostitute_  is coming onto me, arrest her!"

Clara quivered away, standing right next to the Doctor, "I… I think we should…"

He nodded, wrapping his fingers around hers, " _Run_!"


	2. Chapter Two

The Doctor and Clara ran until they were out of breath.

They entered a narrow aisle and hid behind a trashcan. She had her hands over her mouth, to assure the sound of her anxious breaths weren’t heard by the soldiers passing by – the only one that had first approached them happened to call for backup. The Doctor, in the other hand, kept an ear out, hearing for the steps that were still to come.

“I think they’re gone,” he whispered, looking at the main street from behind the bin.

Reluctantly, she freed her own mouth, careful not to touch the dirty wall nor the trash can. “Doctor,” she pleaded, “What the hell is going on?”

Still a little unsure, he stood up, offering a hand to her to help her up. “There was…” he cleared his throat, “There was a swastika on their uniform.”

“Why?” she almost gasped, “World War Two has been over for seventy years, and yet we’ve seen swastikas not only once but twice in the past hour,” her voice showed all the despair she was feeling, “Who on their sane mind would try to bring that back?”

“I don’t know, Clara,” he confessed, looking down at her.

“And why were we just chased by the police? We haven’t done anything wrong,” she carried on asking, “And why does everyone seem to think I’m a prostitute? And you’re my bloody pimp?”

He shook his head, “I haven’t got the slightest idea,” he sighed, “But we will find out.”

She stared into the universe inside his eyes, “Well, what are we going to do next?”

The Doctor scratched his beard, “I think we should get you out of those clothes.”

Clara spat at him, angrily, “What the hell is wrong with my clothes?”

He shot his shoulders up and down, “I don’t know, why don’t you ask the next policeman who tries to arrest you for pudency.”

She crossed her arms against her chest, annoyed, “There’s nothing wrong with me wearing revealing clothes. They should get their misogyny and shove it down their throats.”

The Doctor laid his hand gently on her upper arm, “I know, Clara, you’re absolutely right, but I think we should lay low for a while, just until we know what’s happening, at least.”

Sighing, she agreed, but made sure to roll her eyes when the Doctor handed her his velvet coat, putting it on nonetheless, it landing just a little downer than her jumpsuit. “Where to, now? The TARDIS?”

He jolted his head in denial, ending the physical contact abruptly, “No, it’s too far behind. I don’t want to risk going back for it and getting caught again,” he explained, “We should go to your flat, instead.”

Clara raised her brows, “How is that any less risky than going back for the TARDIS?” she argued.

“Statistically speaking, there’s only one way back to the TARDIS, meanwhile there’s an infinity of possibilities to where we could go next. The chances of us getting caught if we go the second way round are quite slim,” he laid out for her.

“Being caught by those same officers, you mean,” she placed her hands on her hips, “Don’t be so naïve, Doctor, there must be guards all over London, making sure there aren’t any other _promiscuous girls like me_.”

“We’ve walked through London unnoticed before, we can easily do it again,” he debated, “Just come along and see for yourself.”

“I’d rather stay here instead of being arrested to prove I’m right, Doctor.”

“Fine,” he angrily spatted, annoyed with her stubbornness, “Grab a phone and call for a taxi.”

_Thank you_ , she mouthed as she took her phone out of her side purse and took it to her ear. She waited for a few seconds, before suspiciously turning it to the Doctor, “It won’t ring.”

Raising an eyebrow, he got the phone from her and probed his sonic at it for a few seconds. It still wouldn’t work. “I guess phoning a taxi is out of the question, too.”

“Then what,” she started, “We’re going to stay hidden here until the authorities are no longer after us?”

“We could,” he suggested, “But I doubt your human body would last three days without food and water.”

“It wouldn’t,” she spat out, “But we’re stuck here anyway.”

He took a long breath. “Should we get the tube, then?”

Clara gave him the face, “Please explain to me how we’re going to do that.”

The Doctor was starting to get impatient, “Alright, since you’re putting down every suggestion of mine, why don’t you say what should we do next.”

She didn’t even seem to think as she pulled him by the arm out of the aisle. Carefully, looking both ways to make sure there wasn’t anyone waiting for them, she took him to a store across the street.

Making sure the Doctor was always between her and the clerk, assuring they wouldn’t get kicked out again, she looked for the first piece of trousers or skirt her size she could find. Luckily, it didn’t take her long as she grabbed a black cotton kilt that would go down below her knees – partially matching her blouse – and walked up to the cashier.

The man didn’t bother himself with small talk, “Forty-six bucks, ma’am.”

Clara reached out for her purse. She had long learned to always carry money with her when they happened to land somewhere near her current time flow because the Doctor never did. She handed him a fifty pounds’ bill.

The middle aged guy gave her a book, “Ma’am, I don’t know where you’re from but we don’t take false money here.”

Both hers and the Doctor’s eyes widened, “What do you mean that’s a fake bill? Look at the queen!” she exclaimed, incredulous.

He looked at her like she was crazy, “Our monarch is a king.”

Her jaw fell slightly open. Did Queen Elizabeth II die and she hadn’t heard about it? Had the Queen never been queen in the first place? She desperately looked at the Doctor, silently asking for explanations, as long for anything worth trading. His eyes were blank.

Clara glanced down at herself. Her eyes were focused on her wrist, where her late mother’s favorite watch laid. She ran her fingers across the golden object, feeling her heart ache, not for the monetary value, but because she felt closer to her mum when wearing it. Hesitantly, she took it out.

The Doctor could see the pain in her eyes, and even if he didn’t know the story behind the watch, he held her arm back before she could handle it to the clerk. “Don’t. We’ll think of something else. Just keep it, it’s not worth it.”

Clara smiled sadly, “There isn’t another way, Doctor. My emotional attachment to a silly artifact doesn’t matter when there’s a global crisis happening,” she avoided the eye contact, but he didn’t retrieve his hand from her as she handed him the watch.

After putting on the black skirt over her jean shorts, she headed outside, not bothering herself to return him his coat. Neither did he mind, as he followed her, “Are you okay?”

She didn’t stop walking, however, knowing he was right behind her. “That watch, it used to be my grandma’s, and she gave it to my mum when she turned 21. And I grew up seeing my mum wearing it, waiting for the day _I_ would turn 21 and she would give it to me. Of course, she died before that,” she took a pause silently cussing the universe for taking her mother away from her so soon.

“She was wearing that watch the day of the accident, and it had broken during the crash. My dad had it fixed, he thought I’d like to have it, but I was simply too mad at her for dying and leaving me alone that I put it away in the closet and intended never to look at it again.”

“What changed your mind?” he asked, not exactly sure she wanted to tell her the story, but asking anyway.

“I turned 21,” she turned her head slightly, getting a glimpse of him on the corner of her eye, “And I realized I had no right being mad at her, it wasn’t her fault for leaving me. When I came to terms with my loss, I finally found the strength to wear it.”

“I’m sorry,” he was quite vague whether he was sorry about her mother or giving away something so meaningful to her.

“Yeah, me too,” she whispered, before taking a deep breath and entering a state of silence.

He straightened his face up, walking side by side with her, respecting her quietude. Shy and reluctantly, he rubbed the back of his hand against hers, and in a matter of seconds, she wrapped her fingers around his. The Doctor smiled to himself, he knew Clara enough to know she wouldn’t deny any form of intimacy.

Surprisingly, she leaned closer onto him, ending a not so long-lasting hush, “Do you have any idea how much we’re going to have to walk until we arrive at my place?”

“I’ve got a sense, yeah,” he shot his shoulders up and down, both in ignorance and irrelevance. “It’s a nice walk in the city, we’ve had worse times.”

She offered him half a smirk, “Fighting an alien monster does sound a lot better than crossing London by foot right now, Doctor.”

He couldn’t get whether she was joking or simply annoyed, “Tell you what, I’ll give you all the monsters you want once we fix Britain.”

Her smile enlarged, “Sounds good to me.”

 

The dark night had fallen onto them.

They had been walking for a long period of time by then. In reality, _he_ had been walking by a long time, because after hearing her complaining for half the journey, he gave in and let her hop in his back. Had they been slowed down, he couldn’t tell, but she surely had been unusually comfy for the past hour or so.

“I don’t recall London for being so dark and so empty at night,” Clara stated, arms strongly embracing around his neck. Her legs were wrapped around his waist tightly, reassuring she wouldn’t fall if, for whatever reason, he let go of her.

“I don’t recall ever seeing a swastika in London either but you don’t see me complaining about it,” he grunted, eyes wild to his surroundings. The last thing he wanted was to be surprised by anything.

Clara rested her chin atop of his grey hair. “Am I too heavy for your skinny body, is that what’s really making you so grumpy?”

The Doctor chuckled to himself. She was so light and petite he could barely feel her clung onto him. “No, Clara, your weight fits you perfectly,” he couldn’t dream to call her fat, even if just to provoke. He had dealt with too many female companions to know better. “I’m grumpy because I don’t like it when people preach hate speeches.”

“Nobody does, Doctor,” Clara said, rubbing her thumbs against the smooth skin of his neck.

“And yet you don’t see many people doing something against it,” he argued, toughening the grip around her legs, much like he was trying to set aside the anger he felt towards those people.

“People are stupid, but not all people,” she laid her head sideways and he could feel her smile against his skull, “I’m still here with you fighting for the right cause, aren’t I.”

He smiled as well, even if she couldn’t see it. “Indeed, the human race is lucky to have you, Clara Oswald.”

Clara sighed, closing her eyes. Although she had never been afraid of the dark, she felt extremely uncomfortable and insecure while inside of it. “I really don’t like what’s happening, Doctor.”

“Me either,” he confessed, squeezing his eyes in the midst of the penumbra. He knew they were finally close to her flat, he was just having a hard time getting to it without tripping over a shadow and landing them both in the ground. He knew he had to get them both to somewhere safe, before anything got to them.

_“You two, stop right there!”_

The Doctor’s body froze down and Clara tense up. Neither of them could decide whether it would be safer to run away or stay perfectly still; “Alright, Clara, just act as normal as you can.”

She nodded as she untangled herself from him and stood back in the floor. They turned around only to be blinded by a flashlight, impeding them from seeing the face who held it. “You guys know that curfew is nine pm, right?”

The Doctor swallowed hard, pulling Clara closer to him, just to reassure himself she was still there and safe. “Yes, Mr. Officer, we do.”

“It’s nine twenty-three, sir,” he didn’t bother with small talk.

It was Clara’s turn to say something, “We know, but we had no-“

The officer held a hand up in the air. “Ma’am, do I really need to remind you that a woman is not supposed to speak to a superior when accompanied by a man?”

Clara frowned her brows. _That_ was not the common rule from her time and space. The Doctor didn’t seem to agree either, but he just rolled with it, “She knows, she’s just really equivocated, and she’s terribly sorry,” he sighed, “What she’s trying to say is, we lost track of time and had no money to grab a taxi before our time was up. Our destiny is just around the corner.”

He seemed to study their faces for a while, deciding whether they were telling the truth or not. Luckily, he bought his lies, “Alright, I’ll let you go with a warning this time, but let’s avoid this from happening again, okay?”

“Yes,” the Doctor nodded in a rush, “And we thank you endlessly. This won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t,” he finally lowered his flashlight down, “Off you pop, now.”

Without saying anything else, he grabbed Clara by the hand and they both rushed down the street. None of them dared to say anything for the next few blocks, until they got to her building, too scared they wouldn’t make in peace. The universe had been kind enough to grand them at least that.

Clara had never been happier to climb her building’s flight of stairs. She finally felt secure enough to put her guard down and say something, “Doctor, this is insane. In the past day, I’ve been through more oppression than most women have in the 18th century. This isn’t okay.”

He was slow to go up, giving a great amount of thought to every step he climbed. “It isn’t. And a curfew at nine in the night? Not even dictatorships in South America in the 70s were this rigid.”

She waited for him to finish each stairwell at his own pace, no matter how long it took. “This isn’t South America, this is London. I mean, I was never that into history but I don’t ever recall learning about any massive hate groups in Britain. Not even during World War II.”

He looked up to her, him being a few feet lower than her, and he frowned his forehead. “This angle has just allowed me to see how hideous you look in that skirt,” he confessed and she rolled her eyes, “But yes, Hitler never invaded Britain.”

Clara ran her fingers through her hair, watching him as he finally reached her, “This just gets weirder by the minute.”

He nodded, getting past her, his legs then as rushed as his mind, “As soon as we get you out of those clothes, we will work this out.”

She snorted. If she weren’t so far behind already, she would be sure to slap him in the head. She ran after him, “Could you please focus on something rather than what I’m wearing? For instance, how will we learn what’s happening if there’s no one to talk to!”

He placed his hands on his hips, waiting for her to catch up, “I never thought you to give up so easily.”

She took her time, just like he had. “I’m not giving up. I’ll be damned if I’ll settle in a world where I can’t even wear a dress without being persecuted.”

Finally, they made it to her floor. The Doctor didn’t stay silent, however, as she searched for her keys inside her tiny purse, “Tell you what, if we can’t change this Earth thing, I’ll make you a home in a matriarchal planet.”

Clara offered him a smirk, inserting the metal object into the key hold, “Does that mean I’ll get to be the boss of you when we’re there?”

The Doctor whiffed as she unlocked the door, “You say that like you didn’t already boss me around.”

Her grin enlarged as she turned the knob over, “You said it, not me.”

She moved to turn on the lights, but they were already on. She assumed she had forgotten to turn them off the last time they were there, although she had no idea when that had been. They both entered her condo without any further delay.

_“Clara?”_ a soft voice called her from the inside, soon to be followed by the sound of footsteps, _“Oh, Clara, you’re finally home!”_

The moment the face emerged in the living, the face she could have sworn she would never see again, Clara froze, feeling like life had just been sucked out of her. She felt the Doctor’s hand wrap around her own as she tried to call for them, but no sound made it past her lips.


	3. Chapter Three

She couldn’t breathe.

Clara stared blankly at the person in front of her, the person long gone from her life. She hadn’t seen that face in over ten years, and although many had been the times she had pictured herself saying one last thing to them if she got the chance, her mind had gone blank.

The Doctor stood right behind her, puzzled. His previous face had seen the one standing a few feet away, and he was sure to have seen them in their grave. Or at least, he had seen Clara heartbroken over that grave. He laid his hand on his companion’s shoulder, gently, just to let her know he was still there.

“Thank God you’re home,” the voice spoke again, due to the lack of answers, “You had me sick worried about where you were, Clara, you known it’s not safe to stay out after curfew…!”

Clara opened and closed her mouth several times before any sound departed her lips. “Mum…?”

“Yes?” the woman waited for some sort of comeback, but it never came, “Clara, what’s going on with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

_ She had,  _ she thought to herself. Her mother had come back from the dead after ten years and didn’t seem to have noticed it. Either that or somebody was pulling a really sick joke on her, and she couldn’t tell which alternative was worse. She felt her legs going phantom on her and she used her hand to lean on the Doctor. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Ellie Oswald took a step closer towards her daughter, but the moment she saw her flinch, she stood back, “You’re starting to worry me, Clara. Are you going down with the flu or something? Do you want me to take you to the hospital? And who’s that man behind you?”

Clara seemed too much in shock to say anything, so as he crossed his arm around her waist to assure her legs wouldn’t betray her and lead her down the floor, he spoke up, “I’m the Doctor—"

She didn’t let him finish, however, her eyes getting just as big as Clara’s. “You’re a doctor? Oh my stars, there  _ is _ something wrong with her…!”

“No, no,” he was quick to interfere, “Clara is just fine. I’m not a doctor, I’m the Doctor. I’m a friend of Clara’s.”

Ellie frowned her eyebrows. From the way he was holding her daughter, she assumed they were more than  _ just friends _ , but she chose to say nothing about such matter. Clara would always tell her everything when she was ready. “Alright. Then will either one of you tell me what’s going on? Clara?”

Her lips were half opened as she inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, trying her best not to enter a panic attack. After her mother  _ died,  _ she would have one every time she thought she would never see her  _ again _ , and it took a long time to get herself back on track, to understand her mother was  _ gone _ . But in that moment, she felt her nineteen years old self kicking back in. “How… What are you doing here?”

“I called your phone. You didn’t pick up, so I came to check on you. Imagine how must I have felt to find the place empty. Especially now that the persecution patrols are going crazy on anything,” she said, staring at her daughter’s eyes, but unable to read the feeling they held.

Clara was holding the Doctor’s arms so tightly her fingertips and knuckles were turning white. “If… If it’s not safe to go out, then what are you doing here?”

“It’s a two minutes’ walk from my place, Clara, I came running,” she hissed with a small hint of amusement, but straightened her face when she remained serious, “Clara, you sure you’re alright? You don’t seem like yourself.”

Struggling with her own legs, she made it closer to her mother. She studied the woman in front of her carefully. She was just like Clara remembered; perhaps a little older, but everything remained the same. The way she looked, the way she talked, the way she  _ smelled _ . Clara had forgotten those little things long before, but hearing her voice, smelling her sent brought those memories all back. No zygon could ever imitate someone  _ that well _ .

“Mum?” Clara called for her again, tears flooding the corner of her eyes. She knew the chances of her being stupid by believing that was her actual mother were extremely high, but she missed her so much she didn’t care. She could handle that loss again, she just wanted to embrace the luxury of having her mother for a few seconds.

Ellie leaned closer to her daughter, gently cupping her apple cheek with her hand. She could tell something was wrong, even if she didn’t understand what it was. But one thing she knew for sure, she absolutely couldn’t stand seeing her only child hurt. She opened her arms wide, “Oh, come here, love.”

Clara barely had the chance to recline the offer as her mother was quick to hold her. Clara could feel her limbs slightly shaking, but it didn’t take her long to wrap her arms around the woman. She had always been smaller than her mother, and that height difference allowed her to completely hide her face in her shoulder.  _ She was home. _

Ellie held her tight. She could feel her shirt getting wet from the tears that dared to escape from her eyes, although no sound departed from their lips. Her heart ached at seeing her little girl suffer like this. “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

Clara could feel the Doctor’s gaze upon her. She knew he didn’t agree with how the was handling the situation, she knew he would rather her not to create any bonds with whoever it was standing in front of her before she would get herself broken  _ again,  _ but she couldn’t help it. She need that moment to be real  _ so much  _ she couldn’t even tell reality from fiction apart anymore.

“I don’t want to rush you into saying anything you’re not ready, just remember that I’m here for you, alright?” Ellie whispered into her ear, running her hands in circle motions in her back. She had locked eyes with the Doctor, silently begging for any insight on what had happened, but the man remained indifferent. Had he known about what was tormenting her, he was sure not to let it show.

And then, Clara couldn’t take it anymore. Abruptly, she ended the physical contact, betting both Ellie and the Doctor by surprise. Without saying a word, she moved past her mother and ran to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her and getting it locked. She was on the verge of panicking.

“Clara…!” Ellie called for her, but she was too late. She moved to follow her daughter into the bedroom, but a manly hand gently held her back. She turned around.

“For Clara’s sake, just go,” his voice was soft, but enduring. He wasn’t buying whatever façade Clara so desperately wanted to believe in. “She doesn’t deserve this, not after everything she’s been through. Leave now before you break her again.”

Ellie was quick to free herself from his hold. “Who the hell do you think you are? I know the times have come to a point where white men run around assuming they own the place, treating every woman, every Jew, every gay and every black person like they’re the society’s trash, but I will  _ not  _ stand down to a stranger, never mind let my daughter be treated like so, no matter how good of friends you might be.”

The Doctor made a face. Whoever was standing in front of him, they hadn’t got a clue they weren’t  _ real _ . But what really made him wonder was how she had described the current days. He didn’t wonder for long, however, for she was looking at him like she could kill him with her stare – he had seen that same look on Clara’s face several times. He cleared his throat, “What I meant is, go home. There’s nothing either of us can do right now. You know Clara, she needs her time to cope with everything.”

She lowered her glance, “I just wish she would tell me what’s happened.”

He nodded, sadly. He could see that she genuinely cared about his companion, unlike any other façade he had ever seen, who had cared so strictly about themselves and their own disguise they ended up blowing their own cover. Hadn’t he known better, he could easily assume that was, indeed, Ellie Oswald. “She will tell you when she’s ready.”

Ellie ran her fingers through her hair. “How do you know Clara, again?” she asked. She had never been picky about her daughter’s friends and dates, regardless of her times standards, but she found it strange how she had never mentioned him.

“I helped her find the internet,” his voice lacked any sight of humor.

“The what?”

He sighed. That persona was slowing giving themselves away by not knowing what the internet was. “She saved my life, twice actually, before we got acquainted.”

He nodded again. “Must be fate,” the Doctor looked towards Clara’s bedroom door, “I should go check on her.”

She agreed. “Maybe I shouldn’t go-“

“No,” his voice was more of a suggestion than an order, “I’ll take care of Clara, I promise.”

Reluctantly, she accepted it. “Alright. I’ll be back first thing in the morning, but you call me if she needs anything,  _ anything at all _ , am I clear?”

“Yes,” he said as he watched her leave.

 

Clara slammed the door shut.

Her hands were shaking so badly it took her forever to get it locked. Her breathing was rapid, but she still couldn’t fulfill her lungs with all the oxygen they needed. She desperately ran her palms up and down her neck, vigorously trying to get rid of this invisible force that was tormenting her airway.

The tears now rolled freely down her cheeks, leaving behind a wet path. She was feeling so hot and suffocated that she basically ripped her clothes out, being left in only her white blouse and underwear. She moved towards her bed but ended up tripping on her own feet, landing on her knees right next to where she intended to go. Had it been any other occasion, she would have damned herself for being so clumsy.

She couldn’t pull it together anymore, as a loud sob escaped her lips. She clinched her fingers against the white sheets of the bed, so tightly her fingers were turning pale. That link was providing her all the strength she struggled to regain.

It didn’t take her long to start sobbing uncontrollably. At every cry, her difficulty to breathe only increased. She felt herself slowly being pulled out of phase. She couldn’t take that pain, not when she had worked so hard to bury it inside of her, now when she had done  _ everything  _ to black it out. Her mother had been her best friend, she had been her confider, and when she died, Clara saw her life fall apart. It took her a long time to build herself back together, and she wasn’t about to let herself be thrown down that pit again over a persona.

But she missed her,  _ so much.  _ She was supposed to have never seen her mother again, not on her timeline, at least. When she was starting to get acquainted with the previous incarnation of the Doctor, she was so close to asking him to take her back to her own past so she could say  _ goodbye _ , but she realized she wouldn’t be able to cope again if that were to happen. She had gotten to a point in her life that she was fine with the death of her mother. But seeing her again, even a fake her, brought back everything that she had lost, everything that she could have had.

Clara wanted to punch a wall. She needed to let out her anger before it took the control from her. She could feel her blood vividly running through her veins, her heart pulsing hard inside of her chest. Her mind was traveling a thousand miles per hour, so fast she was starting to feel dizzy.

She was exhausted from all the walking they had done that day, and seeing her mother  _ alive  _ was just making her even more tired. Every breath she took was a battle, and she just desired to shut down her brain and forget the world. 

Her whole body was still trembling, she had no way of controlling it. The control freak who had lost control. Her face was a mixture of her tears and her sweat. It was all too much,  _ she thought she would pass out _ . She didn’t know how to fight what she was feeling as her world start to spin around her. She felt her life being slowly and unmercifully sucked out of her.

Four knocks came from the door.

Her upcoming sob got stuck in her throat. She feared what could have happened in the outside; had  _ her mother  _ showed her true colors, had the Doctor made who she was and defeated her, had them gotten into a fight and the survival was standing on her door, ready to get her. She couldn’t feel her limps attached to her body anymore.

They knocked again, probably waiting for her to allow them in. She could hear their muffed voice calling for her, but it was so far away she couldn’t tell to whom it belonged, neither what had they said. Soon enough, there was a buzz and the door unlocked himself.

_ It was him. _

The Doctor slowly made his way inside. His eyes were immediately attracted to her clothes laying around, and his hearts aches the moment she saw her, so petite, so broken on the floor. “Clara…”

“G-go a-way,” she ordered, her words barely making it past her lips. She didn’t want him to see her like that, she didn’t want him to know how she was like when her mother died, how broken she was before she built a wall inside of her to store her pain away.

He ignored her command, kneeling down next to her. “Clara…” he stared right into her chocolate eyes, ones that she didn’t bother herself to hide away. He leaned to pull her into his arms.

“Go away!” she repeated, trying to make herself clear. She just wanted to be left alone. But regardless of her requests, he still tried to bring her to a hug. Clara struggled to break free, twisting her arms and punching him in the chest.

The Doctor didn’t mind, however. He knew she just needed someone to discount all bottled up inside of her, and he would willingly be that person, even if her tiny wrists would leave red marks along his skin. He just needed her to know she was there for her.

Suddenly, she stopped. Her breaths came out in puffs as he watched the tears make their way down her face. From punches her fingers wrapped themselves to the black fabric of his shirt, her lips half opened, letting the air out. Her head leaned closer to him, silently asking for some sort of embrace.

He didn’t need no words to attend her request, pulling her into his arms. Clara wrapped her arms so strongly around his neck she was almost suffocating him, but he didn’t seem to care. She hid her face against his chest, the physical contact muffing her sobs. Neither of them seemed to mind she had half her clothes off.

The Doctor didn’t utter anything. He, the man of words, had nothing to say. And even if he had, he didn’t know how they could make his companion feel any better. For now, he just needed her to know she wasn’t alone, that he would defeat whoever was putting her through so much sorrow. And he didn’t need to say anything about that, the way he was holding her already stated everything.

After a few minutes, Clara finally managed to control her cries. She didn’t get off his lap, however, just moved her head enough so she could glance at him in the eyes, “I’m fine.”

The Doctor cupped her cheekbones with the palm of his hands, using his thumbs to wipe away the wet trays left on her face. “No, you’re not,” his voice was calm and soft, “And it’s okay not being okay.”

Clara bit her lower lip.  _ He could see right past her _ . “This isn’t fair, Doctor. They are defaming her memory, and doing it  _ so well _ .”

He nodded in agreement. “You just can’t get attached to her, Clara. If you do, your pain will only increase once we blow their cover up.”

And she knew he was right. “I just don’t understand, Doctor. Why her? Why  _ me _ ? I had moved on from her death, she was peacefully resting in her grave. These are the kind of things that are supposed to change, then why did they?”

The Doctor hated seeing her suffer. If he didn’t know better, if it wouldn’t cause so many paradoxes and alter so many timelines, he would willingly go back in time and prevent the person she loved the most from dying. “I wish I could give you answers, Clara. The universe’s just cruel and merciless.”

Sniffing, she bounced her head against his chest. “I’m tired.”

He rubbed his fingertips across the skin of her arm. “You should rest, sleep a little.”

She remained completely still, nonetheless. “I don’t want to be alone.”

The Doctor whiffed to himself. A few minutes before, she was demanding him out, now she required his presence; he absolutely couldn’t understand humans, but he’d be a fool to cross her wishes, “I’m not going anywhere, Clara.”

Silently, he lifted her in the air and followed towards her bed, carefully laying her there. She tugged herself under the covers, only then remembering she had no trousers on. Clara looked up and saw him creepily standing, lurking at her. “Doctor?”

“Yes?”

“You’re not going to stand like that all night long, are you?” she pondered.

He frowned his forehead, “You said you didn’t want to be alone.”

“Yeah, but…” she cleared her throat, “That’s just creepy.”

He really couldn’t comprehend her line of thinking. “I don’t get what you want, then.”

Letting out a tired sigh, she rolled over to the opposite side of the bed. She didn’t say anything, but her actions had been obvious about her intentions.

“Because that would be less creepy?” he rose an eyebrow.

Clara rolled her eyes, “Just do it, Doctor.”

Reluctantly, he followed her demands. He didn’t even get rid of his shoes as he laid his head on the pillow, facing the ceiling, moving no much more than a statue. Regardless of how tensed he looked, Clara moved closer to him, using his own chest as a pillow, hearing the sound of his hearts echoing in her ears. “Thank you.”

“For what?” he asked, awkwardly embracing her petite form with one of his arms. 

“For doing as you’re told,” she stated simply, closing her eyelids.

The Doctor smiled tenderly, even if she couldn’t see it. “Anytime, Clara.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any feedback here or on twitter (@dutiesofcare) is much appreciated :)


	4. Chapter Four

She couldn’t fall asleep.

The clock marked 2:12 in the morning and Clara had been tossing around in her bed ever since she first lied down. As exhausted as her brain was, it couldn’t just shut down. She ended up giving up trying to succumb herself to sleep, fixing her vision in some random point up in the ceiling, letting her mind travel through all her emotions and feelings.

The Doctor was being true to her request and sticking next to her throughout the entire night. Although he wasn’t sleeping, he was being as silent as ever. And he knew she wasn’t asleep either, but daren’t to disturb her thoughts. He just focused his vision in a spot right next to hers.

Clara let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Seeing _her mother alive_ had brought back all the memories she had worked so hard to bury inside of her mind, the memories of the last day she saw _Ellie_ breathing. She had hidden away the reminiscing of loss and death as a way of protecting herself from the pain, allowing her brain only to remember the love and the joy.

“I was late for university,” she whispered, feeling a knot stuck in her throat. She didn’t turn her head sideways, however, leaving her eyes glued to the roof. She felt her body slightly shivering, preparing herself for what she was bound to say.

The Doctor looked at her. It was dark, but the moonlight coming through the window allowed him to make the borderline of her profile. He wished he could just look at her in the eye. “You were late for university…?”

She bit her lower lip hardly, pretty close to drawing blood. “I was late for uni and she said she would take me so I wouldn’t need to take the tube. I said _no_ , I didn’t want to make her late for work as well, but she had this conviction that nothing was more important than my education, thus she wasn’t taking no for an answer.”

He could hear the pain in her voice, so he moved his hand to hold hers. A soft smile appeared in her lips with the small gesture, finally turning her body so she could face him. She wasn’t able to sustain the eye contact for long, however.

Clara squeezed his hand tightly as she spoke, “So I let her take me. She wasn’t rushing through traffic, though, even if I was a little impatient. She would lecture me, _impatience is arrogance, Clara,_ and I would calm down, not wanting to seem like an ungrateful bitch,” she could feel the tears wetting her eyes.

She was taking as much time as she needed. She hadn’t told that story to anyone in over ten years, not ever since she first told her therapist. She didn’t think people were worth of her story, she didn’t want them making small talk on her behalf, on behalf of her pain. Keeping the story to herself was a selfish way to remaining in control of her life; she had lost it when her mother died and people started talking about her in her back, and that had been the only way she could get it back.

But he wasn’t _people_. He was her best friend. He was the one man she would never lie to and trust with her life. She trusted him enough to allow him the most intimidate story of her life. “She tried to ease me down with small talk; she loved to chat – guess I took it after her. That car ride, she chose to tell me about that one time she and her friend were laughing so hard inside the church that the priest stopped the mass just to ask them to leave the temple. Of course, I had already heard it so many times, but it was enough to lower my anxiety.”

Clara smiled at the memory. At night, sometimes, when she was feeling sad and down, she would close her eyes and she could still hear her mother telling her tales. And she missed that. The Doctor gently rubbed his fingertips against the skin of her hand, letting her know she didn’t need to tell him anything, but he was there to listen either way.

“The light was green for us,” her voice suddenly became hoarse and raspy. She tried to send away the tears, but they were stubborn enough to escape her eye ducts. “We weren’t inflicting any laws of transit. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t supposed to have happened.”

The Doctor could hear the guilt in her voice. The guilt for being late that day and being the first piece in that domino to fall and cause her mother to die. He wished she would hear and believe him when he said it wasn’t her fault. Instead, he just held her hand tighter.

“We didn’t see it coming,” Clara shuddered at the memory. She didn’t think digging it up would make her feel so bad, so sick to her stomach. “He must have been drunk, or at least suicidal, because there’s no sane person who would drive through the busy streets of London so recklessly, so radically. We… We barely made it past the crossing before the crash happened.”

He could see how much _effort_ she was putting into telling him the worst day of her life. He could guess she hadn’t told anyone about that in a very long time, and yet its details were imprinted in her mind. Perhaps even her soul. He approached his body to hers, in a gesture that wasn’t his, assuming physical contact would make it any less difficult for her.

It didn’t, but she took in his gestures of kindness anyway, feeling his hot breath against her face. “The other car… It hit on my mum’s side. The crash was so hard, so violent, she lost control of the wheels and the car spun around a couple of times before finally landing against a street pole. I was _so scared._ ”

The Doctor felt the pain in her eyes. He then understood it had been her tragedy as well, not only her mother’s. He then comprehended why she had never gotten her own car, even if her father would turn sick worried every time she left home in her bike, but deep down still getting and respecting her reasons. It was a fear he didn’t expect her to grow out of.

Clara closed her eyes. She could still see the world turning around, she could still feel all her internal organs crawling inside of her. If it hadn’t been the worst experience of her life, it came really close. At least, physically. Nothing would ever compare to what she found next.

“I didn’t move at first,” her voice was gradually becoming lower than a whisper, “I just stood still, trying to catch my breath. I heard a car’s engine far away, and the corner of my eyes caught a glimpse of the car that had hit us running away. Cowardly. They didn’t even bother themselves to check if we were hurt. Alive, even.”

He could hear the anger in her words, not because of his murder, but because of his cowardice. After so many years traveling together, he had taught her to never be cruel and never be coward; had he only known her ambition to achieve those standards were because of those particular events.

“They never caught him,” for the first time, she managed to sustain the eye contact. Her big pupils didn’t hold any self-pity, just sorrow. “I didn’t ever want him to be punished for what he did, no, I just wanted him to know. Sometimes, knowing is the worst kind of penalty.”

He agreed. Living with the guilt of knowing what he had done to his home planet, _exterminating_ every living being, was way worse than being arrested for his crimes. He toughened the grip around her hand.

“I didn’t feel any pain at first, so I assumed I wasn’t hurt. It was the shock, but I didn’t know that. I finally turned my head to look at her, to check she was as unharmed as I was. But she wasn’t. She wouldn’t open her eyes.”

_Clara was frozen._

_Her head was spinning and she felt dizzy. She knew it would be a matter of time until a headache kicked in, but for now, she was okay. Weird, however, the hot liquid running down her face; it surely hadn’t been there before._

_Her pupils looked down at herself. Her limbs were shaking, probably due to the adrenaline provided by the scare. The seat belt was strongly holding her by the waist, leaving her a sore belly, but she made no effort to take it off. She felt vertigo out of the blue and closed her eyes, focusing on her breaths._

_Her eyelids were getting heavy, but she had to fight off the urge to sleep, the exhaustion. She had watched too many episodes of E.R. with her mum to know she had to stay awake, for her own sake._

Her mum.

_Her tiredness was suddenly replaced by worry. She got rid of all her weakness and glanced to her side, so abruptly she felt a knife stabbing her in the chest. She ignored it, eyeing her mother and how she had her head resting against the window._

_She looked peaceful._

_“Mum?” Clara called out for her. She thought she was only calming herself from the crash, it was the most common reaction to an accident. Besides, she didn’t appear to be that injured, at least not from Clara’s view, which was a relief. She had to be okay._

_But she wouldn’t wake up._

_“Mum?!” she cried out again, the first sign of despair appearing in her voice, along with the tears in the corner of her eyes._ She had to be alright, _she couldn’t lose her, not just yet, not like this._

_Struggling with the impossibility to move, she managed to lift an arm, raising it to her mother’s neck. She was unsteady, so shaken up it took her forever to firmly lay her two fingers against her carotid artery. And she waited and waited and waited. She felt nothing._

_“No…!” she gasped in her own air, the salty tears damping her cheeks. It couldn’t be right, she needed to have misplaced her fingers, she couldn’t face the idea of touching her mother’s dead body. “Please wake up, please wake up, please wake up…!”_

_In the midst of her sobs, she heard the increasing sound of sirens. Her prayers to whatever god up there had been attended, but she was still left with pleas of hope and begging that her mother was still alive, that she was merely out of conscious. She had never asked for nothing else, the universe had to grant her at least that._

_Clara cupped the opposite side of Ellie’s face with her hand, only then noticing the hot liquid infecting her shaken limb. The tears just kept on falling down her face. Careful not to distress her mother’s body any further and disregarding the possibility of injuries of her own, she pulled herself closer and laid her head across the woman’s chest. She never stopped listening for heartbeats._

_Had she only known that was going to be the last time she would touch her mother’s still warm body._

“I never stopped believing she was alive, even if whenever I asked about her condition, they would dodge me, they would say they didn’t know, they would tell I had nothing to worry about in that moment. So long I believed, she would still be alive, even if somewhere in my mind, I already knew she was gone,” Clara carried on, not even fighting the tears anymore. Somewhere during her storytelling, she ended up tangling herself in the Doctor’s arms, using him as both a pillow and a heat provider.

The alien man gently ran his long skinny fingers up and down her arm. He had barely uttered a single word the whole time through, but still making sure she knew he was listening. “How… How injured were you?”

Her hand unconsciously followed to her scalp, tracing with her fingertips a scar that never faded away. “Not that much, not in comparison. A few bruises and cuts, one or two broken ribs, but that was about it. They kept me hospitalized overnight just for safety, but I was discharged in the very next morning,” she paused for a bit, “That was the longest day of my life. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t cry. I was just… Numb.”

The Doctor laid hips lips on her head, right where her scar was located. “When did you find out?”

“When my father arrived at the hospital, along with my gran,” she swallowed hard, splashing her eyelashes against the skin of his neck, “A little after I was admitted, they… they came in. None of us actually said the words, _she’s dead_. It was all said in the silence of that moment.”

_Clara was staring at the ceiling above her head. She hadn’t moved ever since the medical doctors had left her alone, not because her body was sore – and it was – but because her line of thoughts was rushing so fast through her mind it was consuming all the strength of her will._

_She couldn’t place a finger on what she was feeling. She doubted she was feeling anything at all. She could barely feel the life in her own body. She only knew she was still alive because of the incessant beatings of the heart monitor, and yet that sound seemed so distant she could barely hear it._

_But one thing she knew for sure; she felt a part of her missing, despise her inability to tell what or why or how._

_Suddenly, she heard the door being cracked open. At first, she assumed it was just another nurse checking up on her, but even without looking, she could recognize those footsteps anywhere, anytime. She wasn’t at all surprised when a set of small and thing fingers wrapped around her hand._

_A sharper set of steps came her way, and she was lying between her grandmother and her father. She didn’t know at whom to look, so she looked at neither. She was so still that, if she didn’t have her eyes open, they could have guessed she was sleeping. She wished she were, for she wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone._

_Anyone rather than her mum, who was probably lying in a bed in a room next to hers._

_It took a long period of time for her lips to start moving, “Why… why aren’t you with mum?”_

_The adults looked at each other. They thought she knew. Dave fell into the chair next to her bed, burying his head in his hands, doing his best to hold it together. He couldn’t fall apart, he needed to be strong,_ for her _. “Dad…?”_

_The grandmother cupped the granddaughter’s face, “Oh, Clara…”_

_And then, Clara understood. Her mother was gone. Her mother had died because of her, because she had been late and made her give her a ride. She had_ killed _her mother and there was no possibility of do overs._

_She didn’t let the tears escape her eyes, she didn’t get to cry out of sorrow for murdering the woman she loved the most. She didn’t say anything, there was nothing to be said. Her gran welcomed her in a tight hug, and yet she didn’t utter a sound. She just let herself be held._

_Her breakdown only came during night, when visiting hours were over and was left alone with her guilt and anger._

“I had my first panic attack in that crack of dawn,” she sniffed. Her fingertips were tracing his chest, forming a dance of their own. She was listening carefully to his heartbeats; subconsciously afraid she would lose him if she dared to stop.

“How long did you have them for?” the Doctor pondered, curling her dark brown locks around his thumbs, gently caressing her scalp as he did so. He didn’t ask out of curiosity, but out of care.

“For a long time,” she confessed. She wouldn’t willing tell that to anybody rather than her best friend. “The first time I got inside a car after the accident, I couldn’t breathe. I was so scared to be there, so scared that another wacko would cause the life of my father, of my gran and I would be left alone. I couldn’t stay there.”

The Doctor looked for her eyes, but she was doing a pretty good job on hiding them away. “That’s a rational fear, Clara. You can’t blame yourself for not having control over something absolutely impossible to control.”

“Since when not being able to enter a car for _two years_ is rational behavior?” she snapped; not at him, but at herself. She didn’t say it with self-pity, but with self-disdain. “And my dad… He was so calm about it. When I had that panic attack inside the car, he immediately parked and carried me out – I couldn’t even feel my limbs to that point. He sat with me in the sidewalk for minutes, until I calmed down, until I caught my breath.”

She smiled at the memory that was still to be shared. “He didn’t let me get back inside the car, even if I insisted it wasn’t safe to leave it there. Instead, we took the tube and we did father and daughter things. For a few hours, just a few, everything seemed alright, normal… Everything seemed happy. Of course, we had to go back home and face the sadness, face the reality again. And home felt so _empty_ without her.”

The Doctor rested his chin atop her head. “Even in the worst days there’s the possibility of joy, Clara, no matter how hard to find it might be.”

“Sometimes it seems frivolous to be happy when we’re going to be sad later,” she muffed.

“It does, but if we think that way, no one’s ever going to be happy,” he discussed, feeling her breathing against his torso, “And there’s no point in being alive if you can’t be happy from time to time.”

Clara nodded, “I’m always happy when I’m traveling with you,” she said, although she was pretty sure he knew it already. She hoped he did, at least.

He smiled against her head. “I’m glad I can provide you with some happiness, then.”

She grinned as well, but it wasn’t a happy one. “When we first started to travel together, I so desperately wanted to ask you to take me back into her timeline, just so I could tell her _goodbye_ , but I assumed it wouldn’t be fair. Not to me, not to her.”

“You can say goodbye to her now, Clara. You’ve got your second chance, your do over,” he prompted, ignoring all the ideas he had about who was behind that persona, for her own sake.

“That’s not her, Doctor, you said it yourself,” she sighed, wishing more than anything he was wrong, but knowing he probably wasn’t.

“I could… be wrong,” he swallowed down, not really enjoying the idea of being mistaken, but admitting to himself he had no idea about what was happening.

She laughed to herself, “I think I’d be much more terrified if you were and that, somehow, was really my mum.”

He didn’t find it funny, however. He absolutely could not stand seeing the pain in her eyes brought by that chain of events. “You’re allowed to think about yourself rather than the sake of the Earth for once, Clara. _I_ wouldn’t think any less from you because of it. Thinking about it, wanting it to be real, only makes you human.”

Her face turned serious again. “If I don’t think about it, it won’t hurt when the cruel reality kicks back in,” her voice had only been heard due to the proximity between the two of them.

“Is that what you did when your mother died? Blocked every memory of her just so you wouldn’t have to _grieve_ for her?” his words were harsh, unlike his tone.

“Not at first,” she took a long breath, “During the first days, I felt with every fiber of my being; I screamed, I cried, I threw things at the wall. But then I realized, none of that would bring her back, there was simply no point. So yeah, I buried her inside of my mind, not to miss her any less – I’ll always miss her – but not to feel her death. Might sound inhuman of me, but it was the only way of protecting myself. And I needed protection from my own self and mind, Doctor.”

“Did your therapist agree with that?” he wondered, knowing the answer but still desiring to hear it from her lips.

“Of course not,” she chuckled, “But what could she do? I was mourning and that was my only way of coping. She could only help me if I allowed her to help me.

“Didn’t you?”

“Not entirely,” she confided, ashamed of her teen mind. “I was too mad at the world, I was beyond help. I had fallen into a deep pit of sorrow and there was no pulling me back.”

“What made you come back, then?” he tried to lock his eyes onto hers, “How did you manage to pull yourself out of that pit?”

“I came home one day to find my dad crying,” she took a long pause, shivering at the thought, “And it hit me, I wasn’t the only one who had lost someone. He had held it together so well, he had been _so_ strong, _for me_ , that I forgot he was grieving for her, too. So I sat down next to him – to his surprise – and I held him, letting him cry onto me. It was my turn to be the strong one, and I did my best to be. That was the day I promised myself I would get better, I would move on. It wasn’t fair either way, but I could do that at least. Be there for my father. Honor my mother and carry on.”

“That’s a noble cause to get better, Clara, but not the right one,” he argued, “You had to get better for you and yourself only.”

Finally, she had the courage to restore the eye contact, smirking at his foolishness, “One takes to the other, silly.”

His face expression remained the same, however. “What’s wrong with silly?” he pondered, remembering very well when he first made her that question, but knowing she didn’t. Couldn’t.

She grinned and then chuckled, moving so she could find a more comfortable position, still atop of him. “Nothing, I guess.”

The Doctor waited for her to say anything else, but she didn’t, and he allowed the silence to flow. Eventually, her breathing got heavier, just like her weight onto him, so he assumed she was asleep, and he was grateful for that. Not because he had grown tired of her company, but because she could get some rest, the mind reset she so obviously needed.

He waited a little longer, before finally saying, “You’re braver than you give yourself credit of being, Clara.”


	5. Chapter Five

Clara opened her eyes.

It took her a little time to adjust herself to the light that infiltrated the room. She moved her head towards the opposite side of the bed, sighing when she didn’t find the Doctor where she last recollected seeing him. What did she expect, he wouldn’t be able to simply lay still next to her just because she didn’t want to be alone, not when he suffered a severe case of OCD and  _ refusal _ to sleep.

Getting up, she realized she was only wearing a tee. She moved to her closet, her pupils widening with what she found inside, “What the—“ she tried to utter, shocked that most, if not all of her clothes had been replaced. She ran her hands through them, trying to find anything familiar. She didn’t.

_ What was bloody happening _ , she thought to herself, picking up some black loose trousers and a beige silk blouse. That certainly wouldn’t be her outfit of choice but was still the best one she could find. At least, she assumed she wouldn’t be chased down the streets for wearing  _ prostitutes _ ’ clothing.

In a slow pace, she walked out of her room. The moment she opened her door, a good smell went up her nose.  _ She hadn’t smelled that sent in such a long time,  _ although she refused to give in to the nostalgia. She walked to find her  _ mother  _ in the kitchen, whereas the Doctor simply stared at her with spooky eyes.

“Clara, good morning,” Ellie greeted her with a wild smile on her face, “How did you sleep?”

“Just fine, I guess,” she replied in a low tune, loud enough to be heard by both of them. She eyed the Doctor, silently asking him what was going on.

Needless of him to say anything, since Ellie spoke up again right after, “Seeing how  _ down _ you were yesterday, I decided to make you a soufflé. Before you say anything, yes, I know that you have grown sick of them, but I thought it could bring you some sense of comfort.”

Clara frowned her forehead. She would never grow sick of her mum’s soufflé, not in her sane conscience. Although she doubted that was indeed her  _ mother’s  _ dessert, she smiled, “I love your soufflé, I appreciate the gesture. Where is dad?”

“Must have left for work, already,” she said, too focused on whatever she was doing to give it a second thought. Clara wished she could talk to her father or even her grandmother to check if they had been brainwashed as well.

“And gran?”

Ellie raised a brow, without actually looking up, “Your gran died two years ago, Clara. How could you forget that?”

Clara swallowed hard, glancing at the Doctor with the corner of her eye. Even though she didn’t have any idea of what was happening, she was mad at them for having taken down her grandmother. Didn’t she find it all absurd, she would have had shed a tear. “Right. I don’t know why I asked that.”

Fearing whatever other  _ idiocy  _ that would dare to escape her, she gestured for the Doctor to sit next to her by the living room table, so at least they wouldn’t risk having the  _ persona _ overhear them. “I didn’t mean to leave you alone earlier today,” he spoke in whispers, “I heard a noise coming from the kitchen and came to check it up, dreading it to disturb you.”

“It’s okay, Doctor,” she assured him with a smile, “Wonder how she might have gotten in.”

He shot his shoulders up and down, “Go figure. I just hope her baking skills to be better than yours.”

Clara shot him an appalling look, one that was more than enough to shut him up. “Has she said anything? Any insight of what’s going on?”

The Doctor shook his head. He had noticed how his companion never once referred to her as  _ mum _ , instead she just stuck to pronouns, as tempting as it was. He assumed she was just shielding herself from the emotional attachment that was bound to happen. “No, but… I don’t think she’s very fond of me.”

Clara cracked half a grin, “What did you do to piss her off?”

“Well…” he scratched his chin, “I might have accused her of not  _ being  _ Ellie Oswald,” he cleared his throat, “But, that made me realize something; she has no idea she’s  _ not _ .”

Clara looked down, a little unsteady, “What… What if she doesn’t know it because she  _ is _ ?”

“Clara—“

She held a hand up in the air, impeding both him and the possibility of a lecture. “Listen, I know the idea of my mum coming back from the dead is crazy, but how is it any less crazy than someone impersonating her? Look at her, Doctor. She wasn’t just dug up from the ground, resembling just like the day she died; she’s aged as well. Why would anyone go through all that trouble?”

He nodded, hesitantly, “Clara, I’m not saying you’re wrong. It’ll just be way worse if you believe you’re right and you’re not. You’ll hurt much more when you lose her.”

Clara smiled sadly, “Don’t you get it, Doctor? Whether I’m right or wrong, I’m going to lose. Either way, I cannot win. If I’m wrong, then I was given a hope that didn’t exist in the first place. But if I’m right… If I’m right, she’s going to die again, because she’s nothing more than an abnormally. She can’t exist.”

The Doctor opened his mouth several times to say something, but he was out of words. He was thankful by the approach of the older woman, who couldn’t miss their sudden change of behavior by her arrival, “Were you talking about me? Because if you were, I can go away so you can finish the conversation.”

Clara bit her lower lip. Ellie’s sense of humor, inherited by her, was something she had always cherished. “Of course not. Come and sit with us.”

She did as she was told, sitting across the table from them. “Soufflé’s going to be ready in a few minutes. Hope you won’t starve to death before that,” she joked.

Clara managed to open half a smile, “Don’t worry, we’re not that hungry,” she lied. She couldn’t recall the last time she had eaten anything; her insides were starting to crawl inside of her.

Ellie took a look at each one of them, even if they were too busy looking at the void to stare back at her. “I know it’s none of my business, but are you two, you know, dating…?”

“Mum!” Clara lectured, feeling her cheeks blush. She didn’t even notice  _ how  _ she had referred to the woman before her.

“Clara, you know I’m not judging you or your choice for boyfriends,” she sounded condescending, and the time travelers could only assume she was talking about the so obvious age gap, “But it’s been a while since Danny’s death and it’s good that you’re getting yourself back in the game.”

Clara’s expression went blank, her heartbeat increasing abruptly. Had the  _ alien force _ behind that person extracted the memories from her dead mother, they couldn’t have known about Danny Pink. She felt the Doctor reaching for her hand under the table. “Please, just drop it.”

Ellie nodded, understanding it still to be a sensitive matter, and she served herself a cup of tea, “Alright, I’m sorry. But you need to start dating again, sweetie, you can’t stay single forever.”

Her lips fell slightly open, “What’s wrong in being single? Especially if I’m happier and free alone?”

Ellie shook her head, “Oh, Clara, what’s going on with you? You might not agree with the patriarchal system you live in, but you cannot work your way around it. Your father’s not going to be around forever to sign your legal documents, to take your pay checks, to allow you to go out without a man’s company. I hate it as much as you do, but there’s nothing any of us can do.”

Her eyes widened, just like the Doctor’s, but she did her best to sustain her composure, “When… When did it start?”

“When did what start?” she wondered, sipping her drink slowly.

“This,” she couldn’t have sounded vaguer, “This persecution, this repression against women. It’s just not right.”

“It may not feel right, but it’s the way it is, Clara,” she shrugged.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she protested.

Ellie sighed, “I don’t know, Clara. Probably with the accession of Nazism. Or it probably just added fuel to the fire.”

“During World War II?” the Doctor rushed in, “That doesn’t make sense, Nazism died along Hitler by 1945, therefore the persecution against minorities started to fade away. Not immediately, of course, but by the 21 st century, they all started to gain a voice.”

“That is a beautiful story for a book, you should write it,” she patronized him, “Are you high? Hitler didn’t lose the war, he won it and Germany became a super potency.”

“What?!” both Clara and the Doctor exclaimed at the same instant. That wasn’t true, that  _ couldn’t _ be true, not for the sake of any minority. She squeezed his hand tightly, too scared at the idea that somehow turned out to be real.

Ellie arched her brows, “Did you guys hit your heads against a wall? Of course Hitler won the Great War, and every Jew, every black, every gay person disappeared into thin air. They all went back to Africa and Asia, or they live permanently inside a closet, and as inhuman that might be, it’s just the way it is,” she paused, “But, of course, you knew that already.”

Clara shook her head, “No, that’s just… That isn’t correct. The Allies won the war, Britain, France, the US, the Soviet Union; not Germany. I might have always disliked history in school, but this I know for sure. Hitler killed himself in 1945 and ended the war.”

“Clara, you’re worrying me,” her voice showed her emotions, “The Axis were victorious and they divided the USA between them, they destroyed the USSR and they started a Cold War between them. Hitler died in the 70s and Germany won the Cold War by 1990.”

Clara turned her head to face the Doctor, who looked just as terrified as she was. She had seen him scared, but not like this. Besides knowing the improbability of accuracy, they both knew the many consequences of a Nazi world, and none of them seemed any bright.

Ellie felt a smell coming up her nose. “The soufflé is going to get burned. I’ll be right back.”

Alone again, Clara didn’t hold back, “I hate this for making sense, Doctor. I mean, the swastikas displayed in plain sight, the clerks not taking my Elizabethan pounds, the oppression against me while walking on the streets. This frightens me, Doctor.”

His face was calm, but his brain was running at the fastest of speeds. “Clara, what car was your mother driving when you crashed?”

“Why?” she asked, not comprehending his line of thinking.

“Just answer me, please,” he sounded rushed, but not rude.

“A mustang,” she said in a low tone.

“Mustang cars were created during the Third Industrial Revolution, by the United States. If, for whatever reason, we’ve traveled between parallel universes and she’s telling us the truth, America’s supremacy never existed, therefore your mother couldn’t have gotten inside a car that was never created in the first place.”

“Thus, that woman isn’t a façade, she’s really my mum,” Clara concluded, her last words never really making it past her lips. Although those were the words she desired to hear the most, she wasn’t prepared for the emotional cascade that would fall upon her. That already had. She did her best to remain calm.

“Yeah,” he seemed more solemn than the usual.

She nervously tapped her fingertips against the wooden table. “I thought we couldn’t travel between universes,” her voice lacked any sort of emotion.

“It’s not that we  _ can’t _ ,” he explained, “But it would require so much entropy energy from the TARDIS that it would drain her until she died.”

She sniffed, avoiding eye contact, “How did we end up here, then?”

“We must have fallen through some sort of portal, a door between universes,” he speculated, “Like that time back with the bowtie and haunted houses.”

She smiled so slightly at the memory it was almost unperceptive, “A rift, you mean.” 

“No, not a rift,” he ran his thumb through his hair, “A rift is a tear in the space time continuum; if you fall through it, you can end up anywhere, anytime  _ within  _ the same universe. A rift can’t take you to another universe because they’re supposed to co-exist, Clara. But in this case, something is linking the two of them, and this link has brought us here, without killing the TARDIS.”

Clara nodded in understanding. She stood still for a little, thinking as the soufflé smell went up her nose. “Why… Why didn’t parallel me come home?”

“I… I don’t know,” he confessed, thinking for a while, “Maybe you don’t exist in this alternative life.”

“If I didn’t exist, my mum wouldn’t have recognized me, she wouldn’t be here baking us soufflés,” she seemed numb with the whole situation, but she had a fair point. He knew she was much less calm in the inside.

“You don’t think we’ve traveled to a parallel universe, do you,” he wondered, even if he already knew the answer. He still held her other hand underneath the table, but hers had lost the tight grip over his a while back.

“I think it’s a little more complicated than that, but it doesn’t matter what I think. You’re still Mr. Know-it-all,” her words came out harsher than she had intended, and she regretted them immediately, “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he shook his head, desiring to offer her a place to hide her face, but doubting she was looking for one.

“Neither do I have a reason to be snapping at you,” she sounded angry at herself, but her face lacked any sort of expression. “You’re just trying to do your job, trying to save a world that’s not even yours, and here I am giving you hell.”

“Oh, Clara,” he leaned closer, intending to kiss her in the forehead. Their height difference allowed him the perfect angle. “You’re more than welcome to give me hell; I deserve it. You keep me in line, you keep me truthful to everything that I ever stood for, Clara Oswald.”

She blushed, but didn’t pull back as he thought she would. Instead, she rested her forehead against his shoulder, “I know I so desperately wanted her to be real, but now that I  _ know  _ that she might be, I don’t know how to deal with it.”

Regardless of the mother cautiously eying him, the Doctor wrapped his arms around her tiny torso. “You’ll deal with it like you deal with everything else. You’ll feel it hurt and then you’ll turn your grief into something good.”

“I’m tired to hurting, Doctor,” she murmured, unwilling to let go of him.

He could feel her warm breath from beneath his clothes. “The thing about pain, Clara, is that no matter how much you thrive to get rid of it, life will always make some more. We all live in a constant state of sorrow, not just for ourselves, but for everything else. There are no solutions, no easy answers, all we can do is wait for it to subside, until it becomes who we are,” his voice was no higher than a whisper.

Finally, Clara, pulled away, so she could stare into the ocean of his eyes. “If my mother’s death became part of me, then how am I supposed to deal with her being alive?”

He gently put a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Just enjoy her company while you still can, before the universe…”

Clara didn’t have to hear the rest of his words to understand what he meant. Whether they were in a parallel universe or in their own, her mother would vanish from her life again. There was a clock running on Ellie’s life and Clara feared her time would run out before she had the chance to say goodbye,  _ once again _ .

Much like she could sense her daughter’s sudden increased sadness, Ellie reentered the dining room, carrying the hot puffy cake in hands. She remained silent, just sitting across her once more, gazing upon the younger woman, careful not to make her uncomfortable.

If Clara were anything, uncomfortable wasn’t it. She had never felt that way towards her mother, it was actually the other way around. “Mum…”

Ellie offered her a thin smile. “Just eat your breakfast. We can talk about it later, if you’re up to it, alright?”

Clara simply nodded, helping herself some of the pie. She signed for the Doctor to get himself a piece to taste the wonders of her mother’s baking, but he didn’t move. He wanted her to have it all for herself, knowing with his hearts how much it meant for her. Clara’s soufflé had long stopped being about a mere dessert, but a way to keep the memory of her mother alive. And it broke him knowing that was going to be the last one she ever ate.

Deep down, she knew it too.

Clara closed her eyes, letting the first bite dissolve inside of her mouth. No matter how good she remembered it to be, it turned to be much better in reality. She felt the corner of her eyes watering up, not because she knew she would never eat it again, but because it tasted like her childhood, like the times she didn’t have any problems to worry about. It tasted like love, and even if she’d found love later in her life, it wasn’t the same. She longed for how loved she felt by simply watching her mum cook her a soufflé.

“This is great, mum,” she said in a raspy voice, doing her best to sustain her composure. She didn’t want to get emotional over some silly food, not when she was still to aboard a very unstable rollercoaster.

“Good thing I didn’t lose the touch. It’s been what, two years since I’ve last cooked you one?” Ellie pondered with a cracking laugh.

_ Ten years  _ it had been for her, but she didn’t say anything. For now, she’d decided to embrace that life as if it was really hers, before she came to lose it all over again.


	6. Chapter Six

The Doctor and Clara Oswald wandered around the not so busy streets of London.

They had left Ellie behind, telling her they both had some errands to run. It was partially true, nonetheless, they didn’t need to inform her those  _ errands  _ summoned up in chasing Nazis and gathering information about the world that came to be.

“I had never thought about it, you know,” Clara spoke up after a while, drawing the Doctor’s eyes back to her, “That Hitler could have won the war. Look at this, Doctor, we’ve been walking for almost an hour now and we’re still to cross a black person, or a Muslim, or a Jew, or a woman walking on her own. This is terrifying.”

He agreed, without slowing his pace down, “Neither have I. It’s a good thing that World War Two is a fixed point in our universe.”

Clara froze, letting his words get inside her brain. He turned around when she suddenly disappeared from his side, “Clara?”

“What if…” she cleared her throat, “What if it’s not? A fixed point, I mean.”

He vigorously walked towards her, “But it is, Clara, no one can go around playing with Hitler, hoping for a different outcome.”

“I know this might not be good for your ego, but you could be wrong,” she speculated, crossing her arms before her chest.

“I’m not wrong about this,” he argued, “Being a Time Lord comes with a certain knowledge, a certain sensing about these sorts of things.”

“Okay, leave your race’s superiority for a while and think about it,” she rolled her eyes, “What if World War Two isn’t a fixed point, not just yet, at least? What if it only becomes a fixed point because someone’s altering the past and it’s up to us to set it right again?”

She’d gotten a fair point, he would give her that, “You know how low the probability of that being true is?”

“Is it any lower than the possibility of traveling between universes?” she raised an eyebrow, giving him the look he absolutely couldn’t stand.

The Doctor sighed, realizing she wouldn’t back out on her argument. “Alright. How do you plan to find out which one of us is right?”

“Well,” she seemed to think for a while, “We could go to the library, hit the books and learn about this timeline’s history course— “

“Can’t do,” he was quick to interfere, “Whatever we end up reading becomes a fact, a fixed point, therefore we wouldn’t be able to alter those timelines. And we don’t want Hitler to win, do we now.”

She bowed her head, “What about the TARDIS? Maybe she knows something.”

“I doubt it,” he shrugged.

“Why do you make it so hard?” she muffed under her breath, but didn’t give him the time to provide her some answer, “Then here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to look for another  _ me  _ running around.”

Finally, he heard a suggestion that pleased him. “And how are we going to do that?”

“Don’t know. We’ll lurk around my flat and wait for me to come home?”

“What about the curfew?”

Clara wrinkled her nose, “Do you still have that invisible watch?”

The Doctor nodded, before a twisted smile took over his face, “How bold are you feeling today, Clara Oswald?”

At first, she frowned, but it was soon replaced by a grin, “What do you have in mind, Doctor?”

“I was thinking we could, instead, break into a government facility and search for information there,” he smirked.

As shocked as she might have been, she seemed more excited at the idea than she should have been, “A  _ Nazi  _ facility? Why?”

“To gather information about  _ you _ , of course,” he secured, “Let’s see if Clara Oswald has a bad file on this Nazi empire. Let’s see how bad of a girl you are.”

Clara’s tongue traveled the borders of her mouth, “So, if I have any background, any reasons why I haven’t come home, then this is a parallel universe. But if I don’t…”

“If you don’t, then you are the only Clara Oswald walking in this universe,” he completed her sentence.

She agreed, finally returning her walk side by side with him. “Doctor? If I’m right, how would it work? I mean, why wasn’t my mind wiped clean of the past as I know it?” she wondered innocently.

He turned his head slightly, his eyes meeting with hers, “Different time zones coexist simultaneously, so, as we were light-years away, were it past or future, as we were at the opposite side of the universe, there was somebody messing up with World War II, while there wasn’t a Clara Oswald in her current time zone. Your timeline was altered completely, but since you weren’t  _ there  _ during the change, a life you have no idea of was created, but it’s yours and you lived it nonetheless.”

“How can I have lived something I can’t recall?” she asked, confused.

“You can’t recall it because you weren’t there, but everybody else was, and they built a timeline around you. They saw you  _ there _ . How could you have been seen if you  _ weren’t  _ there?”

Taking a deep breath, she agreed, “Time travel is messed up.”

The Doctor chuckled, “Tell me about it.”

* * *

 

The night soon had fallen upon them.

Clara and the Doctor had sneaked themselves inside the government facility and were hiding inside a cabinet closet. It was dark, and so it had been for the past hours. They had infiltrated during the change of shifts, and their plan was to break into the files room without being seen or caught.

“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” Clara exclaimed, resting her head against the sharp metal of a shelf. Her eyes had already gotten used to the dark and she could almost see the lines of his face.

“You want your answers, your answers are here,” the Doctor complained, eyes closed, just waiting for the right moment. He could tell how impatient she was just by hearing her voice.

“I know, but I never thought I would do something this risky,” she sighed, nervously tapping her fingertips against the concrete floor. She was terrified of being caught, especially in a world in which she had no voice.

“We’ve been through riskier situations, Clara,” he argued, as calm as ever.

She raised an eyebrow. Even if he couldn’t see it, “Riskier than being trapped in a building full of merciless Nazis? That’s debatable, Doctor.”

“Well,” he paused for a little, “I’d much rather being here than next to a dalek.”

“A dalek would just exterminate you right away,” she hissed, “A Nazi would torture you before throwing you inside a gas chamber, where you’d choke to death.”

“You can use reason against a Nazi. A dalek would just kill you for not being a dalek,” he laid out.

Clara smiled sadly, “That’s no difference from what a Nazi does, Doctor. They will kill you for being Aryan, for not being Christian, for not being white and straight. And it’s even worse because they’re killing others of their own species.”

Reluctantly, the Doctor nodded, “It’s a shame, really, that someone would be willing to go back in the past just to allow this scenario.”

She shook her head, “It’s more scary than shameful, Doctor, that there are people who actually think like Hitler did. It’s terrifying the idea of humans following his ideas.”

“They’re just the minority, Clara. Maybe not in this timestream, but in yours, in  _ ours,  _ you shouldn’t fear them.”

Clara bit her lower lip, “Minorities can take us to war, you know that, you’ve seen that. History is made of minorities who decide to take matter into their own hands. It’s a good thing, I mean, that’s how the feminist and LGBTQ and else community finally gained a voice. And that’s how the Nazis would gain their voice, too.”

“I won’t let them cause a revolution. I’ll be the first one to stop the Nazis if we ever came to that, be in this universe or ours,” he said gently, reaching out to hold her hand.

Clara offered him half a smile, before abruptly changing the subject, “My mum must be horrified because I didn’t come back home.”

The Doctor chuckled slightly, “If she knew what we’re doing, she would understand.”

“I’m not sure she would be alright with me becoming a felon,” she argued.

The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, but was hushed by the upcoming sound of footsteps. During those brief seconds, not even their breathings could be heard, but their hearts rushed inside their chest when the shadow of the person stopped right on the opposite side of the door.

The door knob turned over.

_ “Why is the door locked, Bob?” _

_ “I don’t know, sir, I didn’t lock—“ _

_ “Stop talking and open it, I don’t have all day.” _

Both Clara and the Doctor cursed to themselves, both quick to stand back up, “We have to get out,  _ now _ .”

“How?!” Clara exclaimed in a yelled whisper, “There’s only one way out!”

He pointed up to the ceiling, “Air duct.”

Clara’s eyes widened, “Oh no, you—“

“Shut up and give me your foot,” the Doctor ordered, kneeling and offering her the palm of his hands. Mumbling some inaudible words under her breath, she used his shoulders for balance as she stepped one foot in each of his hands. Unsteadily, he raised her up in the air.

_ “The lock is stuck, it won’t open!” _

Careful not to draw too much noise, she opened the hatch. The Doctor gave her impulse to climb it, before struggling to go up as well. It was a matter of closing back the hatch as the door was kicked opened. After that, they didn’t utter a sound, too focused on the words happening just beneath them.

_ “They’re not here, sir _ . _ ” _

_ “They’re ought to be somewhere.” _

_ “Maybe they’ve left, sir.” _

_ “Use your brain,  _ Bob _ , there’s no record of them leaving the building. The impostors are still inside.” _

The lights turned off and a heard bam of the door echoed through the walls.

Clara let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, “How did they find out we were here? We were so careful not to be seen.”

“They probably spotted us on camera or something,” he speculated, slightly groaning at the lack of space to move.

Clara closed her eyes, so she wouldn’t notice the spiders and other insects crawling around her, “I thought you said the Third Industrial Revolution didn’t happen, how are there cameras?”

“Clara, what the heck do I know?” he condemned, searching for his sonic glasses inside of his pockets, mentally turning the night vision on, “I’m an expert on things that have happened , not in an hypothetical world.”

“If it were  _ hypothetic  _ we wouldn’t be here,” she let out a high-pitched whisper, turning her head towards him but never having him on her vision field. She sighed, “So, what now?”

“Get your little legs moving, we’ve got to reach the filing room before we end up locked in here,” he commanded.

Muffing a few words of annoyance he couldn’t quite understand, she started climbing through the ducts, heading god knows where. “You better not be staring at my butt, Doctor,” she threatened.

“Where else am I supposed to look at?” he grunted, “Your hips take over most of my vision field!”

Clara rolled her eyeballs, “Then close your eyes.”

“Would you rather have me bump into your buttock instead?”

“Just stop staring and tell me where I’m bloody supposed to lead because I’m completely in the dark here,” she meant both literally and metaphorically.

Reluctantly, he nodded, “I’ll guide you. I’ve downloaded the building prints in my glasses.”

She humbled in agreement, hearing his voice echoing through the tubes. They crawled their way as silently as possible, frightened they would be caught. It didn’t take them long to arrive in their destination and Clara was the one to jump down first, despite of the Doctor’s protests that he should go down before, due to his height, consequently preventing her from getting hurt in the fall. She ignored him.

“Did you stumble your foot on your way down?” the Doctor pondered, seeing her bending sideways.

“I’m fine,” she uttered, using the little moonlight that came from a small set of windows for orientation. “This place is huge.”

“I expected it to be,” he grinned, “Imagine keeping track of everybody alive in London without a computer. That’s a great amount of people, and that’s twice as much paper,” he said, fetching a flashlight out of his pocket and throwing I to her.

She almost didn’t catch it. “Why would the government keep track on everybody?”

“This is a dictatorship, Clara,” he exclaimed, using his glasses to trace the letter  _ O  _ in the shelves, “The world as you know it doesn’t exist. Freedom of speech is gone, liberty is a vague concept and repression is everywhere. It’s a sad reality, but it’s the way it is.”

Sighing noticeably, she flashed her way towards one of the tall shelves, the one she had spotted long before the Doctor. She knelt in front of it and it took her a relative amount of time to go through all the people with the same surname as her. “ _ Oswald, Clara _ , got it.”

The Doctor sneaked behind her, “Does it have your middle name there?”

Clara shot him a glance, “I’ll tell you my middle name once  _ you  _ tell me your name,” she provoked him.

“Fair enough,” he hissed, “What does it say?”

She quickly ran her eyes through the file, “Hmm… Graduated from school, literature teacher, fiancée to the perished Danny Pink, no risk to the great Empire of Britain,” she looked back at him, “I thought this would help us somehow but we’re just as lost as before.”

He retrieved the paper from her hands, “It says quite a lot, actually. This clarifies that Clara Oswald is a model citizen, that she wouldn’t do anything against the dictatorship, neither is she under the State’s protection, therefore there’s no reason why she couldn’t come home at night.”

“That’s pure speculation, Doctor,” she condoned, “We can’t rely ourselves on this.”

He closed the file, restoring the eye contact, “Think like this, would you willingly skip home without telling your mum, leaving her sick worried about you?”

She scratched her head, “No, but…”

“Well, neither would this timeline Clara,” he reassured her with a soft smile.

Clara swallowed hard, “So you’re saying I was right.”

“Yes,” he nodded, “But you don’t seem happy about it.”

He saw her eyes become watery. “Being right only means she’s going to die. Vanish into thin air.”

Gently, he cupped the cheeks of her face, “You were going to lose her anyway. You can’t coexist at the same time as her, Clara.”

“At least I would know she was still alive, even if in a different universe,” she sniffed, forcing the tears back into her eye ducts.

“Clara,” he sang his name, “She’ll always be alive, as long as you preserve the memory of her. Memory is a powerful thing, you just can’t let it fade away in order to keep yourself from hurting.”

_ “Open up this door.” _

_ “There’s no way they could have gotten in here, sir, this is the most secure room in the building.” _

_ “I don’t care, Bob, I don’t underestimate the enemy.” _

Clara and the Doctor vigorously stared at each other’s eyes, and she was the one to break the silence, whispering, “Should we up the vent again?”

“There’s no time,” he threw her file somewhere among the other Oswalds. “Hurry up, hide away.”

The door was cracked up, the dim light from the hall entering the room.

“See, sir, there’s no one here.”

The agent rolled his eyes, long before annoyed with the janitor, “Bob, go do yourself a favor and ask around if they’ve been found somewhere else.”

“Yes, sir,” the caretaker didn’t have to be told twice.

The superior agent grabbed his flashlight out of his belt, turning it on. He shoved the light at each shelf, each table, each and every place someone could hide away. He didn’t give up until he spotted a great amount of curly puffy hair. “Well, well, look what we have in here.”

Then, there was a loud crash and a Nazi falling down to the floor.

The Doctor looked at the unconscious man lying before him, then heading up to the woman standing in attack position, flashlight fiercely in hands. “Did you just kill a Nazi?”

Clara didn’t find his remark amusing, however, “He’s just unconscious – hopefully. But next time I’ll leave you to fight a Nazi on your own as I escape,” she rambled, searching for the man’s pocket for his ID and access card, “Come on, let’s get out of here before they find us.”

Nodding, he followed her out, but ended up taking the lead as he still had the prints on his shades. She just made sure to double-check where they were heading, as the Doctor was prompt on leading them into a trap.

After climbing down the fire escape, they arrived at the main floor. According to his artefact, they had only to get down the hall and the front desk, before being off dangerous ground. Their only problem was the fleet of soldiers there, most likely guarding the front door.

Clara offered him a dreadful look, after taking a peek at the hall, “Alright, pretty boy, you better have a good plan right now because there’s no way we’re leaving unnoticed.”

He gave her a smirk, “Turn around.”

She frowned, “Why?”

“Just do it.”

Reluctantly, she did as she was told. He placed the shades on her eyes, “Leave them on. If anything goes wrong, you’re responsible for getting us out of here.”

“I still need to know  _ what  _ could go wrong, Doctor,” she demanded.

He held her fists together behind her back, despite of her sudden gasp of surprise, pretending she was handcuffed, he himself personating a Nazi, regardless of his clothing. “Just go with it.”

Nodding, she let herself be pushed out, leaving her hands as tight together as she managed. All heads turned towards them the moment of their appearance, but the Doctor was quick to pull in character, “Worry not, I’ve got the intruder.”

Their faces remained the same, their hands laying on top of their weapons, “Who the hell are you?”

The Doctor retrieved his psychic paper, “I’m with the MI5. I was called in moments after the breaking in and caught this youngling wandering around.”

They eyed one another, “The MI5 has been put down ever since the ending of the Great War,” the one speaking slowly walked towards them, “I think you’re trying to fool me, that is.”

The Doctor puffed, thinking his accusations to be absurd, “You  _ think  _ the MI5 is dead, but we’ve sworn loyalty to the majesty and we’re not going to be shut down. A secret agency that’s going to save the Great Empire from its enemies, such as this one,” he gestured towards Clara.

Clara rolled her eyes, sensing he was one step from blowing their last-minute cover up, but knowing she was in no position – neither did she have any right – to say something. Instead, she just focused her vision on the main door, mentally getting it opened.

“We’re agents of the law, sir,” he wandered around the Doctor, until he was facing back the main door, believing that way they would be countered. The Doctor started taking steps back. “We know every organization in the Great Empire of Britain, and MI5 is not one of them.”

The Doctor swallowed hard, backing out to the point he hit his back against the main entrance. “You obviously don’t know every one of them if you believe the MI5 is dead.”

Without further notice, three of them raised their guns at the couple, having their aim directly at their torsos. For being in front of him, Clara would be the first one to feel the shot. “I’d advise you to stay still before my fingers accidentally slip the trigger.”

The Doctor shook his head in disapproval, “What is it with you humans and violence?” he grunted, before lowering his head to whisper in her ear, “I hope you’ve done your job right.”

“You’ll be surprised,” she teased, not needing to turn around to know his hands had gone from her wrists to the knob behind him.

“This is your chance of coming clean before things get worse for you,” the officer commanded, gun still strongly in hands.

“Can I just say something?” he pondered, turning the knob open but not getting the door opened more than a peek. They waited for what he had to say, “It’s been a pleasure.”

Out of the blue – and getting them by surprise – the Doctor threw himself back, and he and Clara didn’t wait a single second to rush off the building. The time frame between their escape and the Nazi’s reaction was enough to allow them a head start. They didn’t look back.

As they were running down the street, shots were fired at them. Clara bucked down at the sound, even more when she saw a bullet landing right in a dumpster in front of her, causing her legs to involuntarily slower her pace down. The Doctor was quick to reach for her hand, pulling her among the bullets that still came their way.

“Clara, get this car open,” the Doctor yelped, staring at a locomotive a few feet away from them. He could hear footsteps right behind them, but he daren’t to look back, not even when he felt a sudden impact on his upper left shoulder.

As Clara used the shades to unlock it, she heard the man next to her groaning. When she saw him leaning sideways, she knew immediately he had been hit. He didn’t stop running, though, neither did he let go of her hand. “Doctor, you’re hurt—“

He was too busy to worry over a little wound, “Get inside the car,  _ now _ .”

Not overcrossing his words, she climbed inside the vehicle. Her heart was pumping hard against her throat, but she focused herself on getting the ignition started. She hadn’t driven a car in so long, but she didn’t let that get in her way. She waited for him to get in and hit her foot against the pedal as hard as she could, regardless of the bullets now ricocheting against the glass window.

“Clara, get down before you get hit,” he demanded, applying pressure to the hole in his shoulder.

She ignored him, knowing she would have no range of vision if she dared to follow his instructions and would most likely lead them into the nearest wall and get them either dead or trapped, she couldn’t even tell which one sounded worse. Instead, she just focused her eyes on the dark road ahead of her, thankful for his shades for helping her vision.

“Clara!” he lectured her by the simple yell of her name. The upcoming shell was enough to break the rear windshield glass.

She lowered herself at the sound of the scattering, but not enough to bent over. “Just let me get rid of them!” she yelled back.

“Your life isn’t worth an escape from a Nazi army,” he said, looking back just to see the soldiers becoming tinier by the distance.

Clara only allowed herself to breathe again once she took a turn and knew they were out of the fire reach. She didn’t slow down, nonetheless. “It wouldn’t be  _ life  _ if I ended up at a Nazi’s hand, either,” she elaborated, “How bad is your injury?”

“I’ll live,” he mumbled under his breath, “Turn over, you don’t want to risk them tracing us again.”

She nodded and then they fell into a deep silence.

**Author's Note:**

> Of course, this is a reality set in my mind only, therefore I have no idea how a Nazi world would be in the 21st century, but I did my fair of research and tried to make it as accurate as I could. If you have any ideas of how you think things would be, I'd love to hear them, so any reviews are appreciated :)


End file.
